Do you have limited time to spare and a shrinking attention span? If so, you’re not alone – but we hope our first fiction title of 2024 may really hit the spot.
The Body in the Mobile Library & Other Stories is a short story collection by Peter Bradshaw, the lead film critic of The Guardian. The stories are gloriously funny explorations of surreal conceits, for example:
– in his retirement at the Vatican, emeritus pope Benedict XVI is hard at work on his magnum opus: a high-school comedy screenplay;
– at a grimy pub in North London, a doctoral researcher is abducted by gangsters peddling William Wordsworth’s handwritten account of drug-fuelled sex orgies;
– in the West African state of Benin, a politician’s daughter inherits a large cash sum which she can only launder with the help of a random Englishman sourced on the internet.
The stories have made us laugh out loud and there isn’t a dud in the collection. Mel Giedroyc – of Mel and Sue fame – loves them too, calling Peter’s storytelling ‘staggering and unforgettable’.